Folded Messages
by Rat-chan
Summary: John Watson comes home from a not so great day to find his flatmate folding paper flowers. What on Earth is Sherlock Holmes up to this time?


With a feeling of intense aggravation that I in no way expected to be alleviated upon return to 221B Baker Street, I opened the door of the sitting room I shared with Sherlock Holmes. I could not now fathom why I had thought attending a symposium on recent pharmacological discoveries from South America would be a good idea. The affair had started as little better than a fundraiser and had descended into absurdity with sensationalists on one side seeking a new curare and hedonists on the other demanding the next cocaine.

_Cocaine_, I thought with a snort, though I cringed internally at the petulance of my own mind voice. Yet, after the utterly foolish pandemonium I had just endured because of that drug, the likelihood of my living companion being currently under its influence made me want to slam the door shut behind me, like a schoolboy throwing a tantrum.

Or perhaps it was morphine this time? Baker Street was unusually quiet and as Holmes had no case at present, it was unlikely for him to be out. After hanging up my coat and hat, I turned my attention to first the table and then the settee.

I did not, however, see the dreaded Morocco case or the expected incapacitated detective. Motion from the window snagged my attention and I turned to the desk that stood by the window. There Holmes sat gazing intently first at a book and then at whatever he held in his ink-stained hands. The detective turned to the window then and held the object up to a golden shaft of sunlight streaming in through the open curtains.

"I say, Holmes, what _are_ you doing?" It was undoubtedly rude of me to greet my flatmate thus, but irritation and surprise got the better of my manners.

"Ah, Watson, there you are. And what do you think of _this_?" Holmes asked, turning to me and holding up the object in his right hand: a flower made of intricately folded pieces of paper.

"It's charming I daresay," I replied cautiously as I approached him, "but what is it?"

"Origami."

"Ora-gammy?"

"_Origami,_ my dear Watson. The Japanese art of paper folding. I have been practicing it all afternoon."

"Fascinating to be sure, but whatever for?" Was it the cocaine after all? I could conceive of no other reason for Holmes to be engaging in exotic paper craft.

"Here," the detective said, handing me the flower. "Examine it closely. What do you see?"

"A paper flower."

"Come now. You are being deliberately obtuse."

"Well, I couldn't tell you what kind of flower it's meant to be, but I do compliment you on its intricacy."

"That's precisely it, Watson. The intricacy. Once upon a time, lovers in Japan would send notes to one another folded in this fashion."

_Lovers! _"My God! Holmes, have you got a sweetheart?" Was the apocalypse so close at hand?

Holmes indulged in a loud derogatory snort before replying, "I have not yet lost the use of my reason, Watson! No. I am exploring the possibilities of its use in my more sensitive correspondence with my brother Mycroft."

"Your brother, Holmes? But, I don't see…"

"Well then, you must look again! There are hundreds of shapes one can achieve with origami and each one can have a different meaning. And then, of course, is that very intricacy upon which you commented. If you were to unfold that note to read its contents, you would _never_ be able to refold it exactly as it was. It would be evident at once that the message had been intercepted and read! Go on man, try it," Holmes urged.

At his insistence, I began carefully to unfold the flower. "Why a flower?" I asked him.

"Why not?" was the uncharacteristic reply. I looked up from my hands to his face and found him looking most studiously at the desk. With a shrug at his odd evasion, I refocused my attention on my task. It was even more complicated than it had initially appeared and I had to concede that it would indeed be nearly impossible to refold exactly. It was—

It was covered in my own handwriting.

"Holmes?" He tried an ingratiating smile on me as he caught the change in my tone. "Am I mistaken or is this flower made up of my notes from your last case?"

"I assure you their overly romanticized contents are perfectly intact."

I looked down at the desk and found it littered with his earlier, most of them less successful, attempts at the flower. And trimmed off scraps of paper.

"You cut my notes!" I knew he had no respect for my writing, but to treat my work in this cavalier fashion? "Holmes!"

"I beg you to calm yourself, my dear Watson!" He tried a placating smile and raised his hands as I took an aggressive step closer to him. "I required square bits of paper for this and as you can see, I have cut away nothing of importance. Unless, of course, you consider your rather juvenile attempt to sketch our young client to be of any value."

"Holmes, you…" I had thought that sketch rather a true representation of the lady's beauty! "You…" I clenched my fists before me and took a deep breath. It really was not worth the effort of arguing – Holmes would never see my side of things. "You do try my patience, sometimes."

"I am well aware of it, my dear Watson," he said with an amiable smile before rising and walking to the door.

"Where are you off to?"

"I'm going to pay a call on my brother at the Diogenes Club to discuss the matter with him. Do tell Mrs. Hudson not to wait on me for dinner," he called as he headed out the door.

With a drawn-out sigh, I turned back to the desk to begin recovering what I could of my notes. As I set to work, though, my attention was caught by the volume that Holmes had left there, open. The pages were covered with detailed diagrams of all the folds required to produce the paper blooms that now filled my hands. I set them down for a moment and flipped the pages back to the beginning of the shape and as I did so, I marveled again at the complexity and at the time it would take to produce just one of these flowers. Surely Holmes could have started out with a simpler pattern?

But simple was never a word that one associated with the Great Detective. No. Naturally he would start with something challenging. And yet, why this flower?

"Dahlia," I read, "or, as the Japanese call it 'tenjiku botan.' A flower that, though not native to Japan, has gained popularity in the gardens of Edo. In the Japanese language of flowers, it bears the meaning 'gratitude.'"

I stopped reading as I noticed the imprint of an ink-stained finger under that last word. I looked down yet again at the array of origami dahlias covering the surface of the desk and, in spite of all my previous aggravation, I felt a smile tugging my lips.

No, nothing was ever simple with Sherlock Holmes. Not even a message.


End file.
